Friday, March 16, 2012

This weekend is the Virginia state scholastic chess tournament. This means I'll be sitting in a hotel waiting for my son to emerge from the game room, hopefully grinning broadly. I'll be doing this from 6pm until 9pm Friday, then 9am until around 7pm on Saturday, and 8am until around 2 on Sunday. Then we'll stick around for the awards.

It's a long weekend.

The following weekend, my oldest son bought concert tickets for himself and his brother. That's OK; they've done this before. Except the concert is about three hours away.

Being a teenager, my oldest saw no problem with driving back after the show. Being an adult, I did. My wife's first idea was for the four of us to go and spend a weekend near where the concert is. I told her I didn't want to go there ~ I've been there before and it is a boring place.

So we have four options:
* trust the boys to go alone, stay in a hotel together, and make it back the next day.
* I go with the boys
* my wife goes with the boys.
* we all go.

I don't like option 4. I don't see it as a holiday and I do see it as overkill.

I like option 3, but there's always a spanner in the works: she'd like to go to a conference the next day and would have to skip that.

I will put up with option 2. I'll hole up in the hotel, or go walkabouts if the weather's nice. I can spend some quality time with the internet, or work on a computer project I've been trying to make time for for a while now.

But option 3 also means I'm alone from mid-afternoon Friday until, say, lunchtime Saturday. Meg would love to get out. But I'm afraid that my wife will put off any sort of decision until it's too late for me to get properly ready and find someplace to go and I'll miss out.

Plus, I'm concerned that she'll use this as a "I'm giving in a lot and letting him go out so now he has to give a lot."

Dear Meg, You seem to have a wish to be a “part time girl” This not wrong! It’s ok!I would (at the next therapy session) explain that you desire to dress is much like being a clown at “chucky cheese diner” You dress up, have some fun, (clowning around, enjoy acting as if you are someone else) And act complete different than the MALE (think, head of household, breadwinner, lots of responsibility) you truly are. Something you like to do 3 or 4 times a month. No bodily changes, no full time, just now and then. Just something I like to do, without the neighbors or friends etc., needing to know. You have no desire to have two females living at home or to ever break up your family. Now, I do not think your 18 year old would misunderstand your intention as I’m sure he has seen you dress as Christine O’Donnell. The 14 year old’s reaction to the class at the synagogue leave me with the thought that he’s not in girls and still young and it maybe the wrong time explain things to him.Above all I would INSURE to your family that you love them and that you will not let these desires destroy your relationship with each one.